When Max's hand slid down to cup one of Bethany's full breasts, she moaned and thrust herself into him, needing to merge, to become one with him. His lips followed his hand, his mouth settling over the tip as it strained against the fabric of her blouse. Her fingers slid up his face, burying themselves in his thick brown hair, telling him to keep doing what he was doing.
Hot breath permeated the fabric, retaining the heat, spreading it. As she pebbled against his circling tongue, fire spread through her body down to her core. She needed to quench the fire, and only Max could do it.
Every kiss, every caress was bliss. Bethany wanted to take in every curve, every ridge, every muscle of Max's body and face, but everything he was doing to her forced her eyes closed in ecstasy. Her other breast was the focus of his attention now, and it was all she could do to not rip off all her clothes and demand he take her. As much as she wanted that, she also wanted this to last.
His warm, rough hands skimmed across the soft skin of her belly as he eased her shirt up. Finally! Her own hands freely roamed his broad shoulders and bulging biceps, cradling his head for a moment before resuming their exploration. Even under the loose-fitting t-shirt he was wearing, there was no hiding his fit form.
As sighs escaped Bethany's lips, chuffing grunts came from Max. The handful of TV shows she'd seen about bears often showed them making these noises for any variety of reasons. Apparently good lovin' was one of them, and the realization that he was reacting to her so strongly made her wetness flow more freely.
He kissed his way back up to her lips before breaking away to pull her shirt over her head, leaving only a thin layer of silk between them. Thank God she'd had the forethought to put on pretty underwear!
Bethany tried to push into him, to feel him against her, but he kept her at arm's length. His gaze roamed her half exposed body, thrilling and embarrassing her at the same time. It took a monumental effort to not cross her arms, to hide herself. Max's tongue wetting his lips like a hungry man — or animal — looking at a juicy steak made her feel sexier than she ever had. Like she was someone to be wanted, desired.
Reaching behind her, he snapped the clasp of her bra loose and slowly slid the straps down her shoulders, letting the cups brush her sensitive skin until cool air eased the burning. His gasp drew her gaze.
"You're so beautiful, Bethany." His voice was hoarse, choked with emotion and lust, as he devoured her with his eyes.
A wave of emotion swept over her, one she didn’t have the courage to identify. Tears pinpricked at the back of her eyelids so to hide them from Max, she lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his body and pulling him to her. He gave no resistance.
Bethany kept her face buried in his neck, breathing him in, tasting his skin, basking in his heat. Her soul wanted…no, needed more of him, all of him. She whimpered in protest when he pulled away, then purred happily as he lifted her into his arms easily and carried her to the bedroom. She was barely aware of her surroundings but the plush king size bed felt like heaven as he gently laid her on it.
The bed dipped as Max kneeled at her side, his hands skimming her body and setting her on fire. She felt so comfortable with him, so uninhibited. He was practically worshipping her body so all self-consciousness fled and she enjoyed every moment.
His fingers expertly unbuttoned her shorts and slid them down her hips. Warmth — but not embarrassment — pinked her skin at his touch, especially when his fingers slipped under the elastic of her pretty panties and eased them down her long legs. As he pulled them from her feet, his lips took their place, following the path they’d taken.
Breath locked in Bethany’s lungs in anticipation, her fists clutching the bedspread as Max licked and nibbled and kissed his way up her legs. His hot breath sent shivers along her spine, making every hair on her neck stand on end. She couldn’t take much more. The need for him to be inside of her was overwhelming.
Half-sitting, she tugged at his t-shirt, helping him rip it off. She was reaching for the fly of his jeans when he grabbed her wrists and held them tight, a delicious smile on his lips. “What’s your hurry?”
“I need you, Max,” she said, panting. “Now.”
He leaned forward and planted a smoldering kiss on her mouth, giving her tongue a little swipe before pulling away. “And you’ll have me, but there’s no need to rush. We’ve got all night…and I intend to put it to good use.”
Bethany fell back into the pillows, wanting him to fill her but intrigued by his tantalizing invitation. Her eyes followed his every movement as he languidly stood to remove his jeans. He was straining the fly so much it looked uncomfortable. The moment the first button released, the rest popped free on their own, exposing his engorged sex.
He wasn’t wearing shorts. Unbelievably, Bethany’s desire ramped up another notch and she moaned in response.
Stepping out of his jeans, Max kneeled at the foot of the bed, wrapping one arm around each of her legs as he eased himself between them. The callouses on his hands tickled her smooth skin, yet soothed her at the same time, calming her. He was right — there was no rush. Stretching her arms above her head, she relaxed, sighting deeply and spreading her legs as he kissed and caressed his way to her apex.
At the first touch of his lips, her core tightened, pulsed. It had been so long since anyone had taken care of her needs like this, she’d forgotten how good it felt. While she still had her senses, she cast a dazed glance down at the top of his head. He caught the look and held it for a long moment before smiling and dipping his head again.
Tickles turned into ripples, ripples to currents, currents to waves. As Max’s tongue and lips teased her sensitive nub and delicate folds, Bethany arched into him, fisting the bedspread and groaning in delight. Heat spread through her abdomen and then through her entire body as she crested each wave. Every muscle inside her grew more tense and when Max focused his efforts, her body was ready to explode.
Crying out his name, Bethany was pulled under and toppled through the surf of her climax, writhing under his mouth and hands. Colors flashed before her closed eyes as her body convulsed and spasmed, seemingly forever. Only when her body started to relax did Max ease his onslaught.
He kissed his way along her belly, his hands leading the way to her sensitive breasts. He paused briefly to take each tip in his mouth, rolling it around with his tongue before releasing them and nuzzling her neck. Still incapacitated from the mind-expanding orgasm, Bethany could do little more than try to catch her breath.
But when she felt him pressing at her entrance, a new wave of energy flowed through her. She would finally have him inside her! Wrapping her limbs around him tightly, she guided him into her. He moved slowly, savoring the sensation, a low growl coming from deep within.
It was a long moment before he was fulling consumed by her warmth, neither daring to move for fear of breaking the spell they were under. But Bethany’s whimper apparently sent Max over the edge and he began moving slowly inside her, filling her to a point beyond imagine.
“Oh, Max,” she whispered in his ear.
A quick turn of the head and his lips silenced her. Their tongues were intertwined and frantic, their bodies moving in unison, their hearts beating with the same rhythm.
Max broke their kiss and Bethany opened her eyes to see him staring at her as he thrust into her, claiming her. She’d never had a man look at her like that — with such hunger, such raw emotion — and her heart expanded in her chest, even as her inner walls tightened around him.
When he buried his head in her neck again, Bethany knew he was close. She was surprised to find that she was, too. She’d never been multiorgasmic before but Max clearly brought it out in her. As the speed of his thrusting increased, the closer she came to the edge of reason. With a loud groan, he fell over the precipice, taking Bethany with him, holding her tight and rocking her till their sweat-slickened bodies stilled.
~ * ~ * ~
They lay snuggled in bed, dipping spoons into first the pint of
ice cream and then the berry crisp. Max tried to feed her a spoonful but it ended up hitting her nose. As their laughter subsided, she said, “Do you remember when we first met?”
“Every detail.”
“Please tell me you didn’t notice the ice cream smeared all over my face.” She blushed at the memory.
“Sorry, Charlie. I did indeed notice and it was all I could do to restrain myself from licking it off.”
She giggled at the suggestion.
“Oh, you think I’m kidding?” He tickled her a little, making her squirm, then dribbled a half-loaded spoon of purpley goo over her breasts, making her squeal.
Setting the pan and tub of ice cream on the night table, he moved over her, straddling her body and holding her arms above her head. His tongue slicked across his lips. “Now look what you made me do. Guess I’d better clean up my mess.”
The next several weeks passed in a blur, the delicious haze of new love coloring Bethany’s every waking moment. Not that they’d confessed their undying love for each other or anything, but she was consumed by her feelings for Max.
He was the strangest man she’d ever dated, probably ever met. Usually, lovemaking took top priority in a new relationship, but Max seemed to want to spend more time getting to know her. And the more he got to know her, the more he seemed to like her.
The feeling was very mutual.
The guys she’d dated always tried to bend her to their way of thinking. If they liked or hated a movie they’d gone to see, she was an idiot for disagreeing. If she didn’t have the same taste in food as them, they’d tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about. If they leaned one way politically, they told her she was stupid if she leaned the other way.
Not Max. He accepted her for who she was. He hadn’t even teased her when he discovered her secret love of Barry Manilow. Instead, he pressed play on her MP3 player and danced with her in the living room.
Of course that’s not to say the lovemaking wasn’t incredible. No one had ever payed so much attention to her needs before. Max seemed to know instinctively which parts of her body to touch to send her spiraling into ecstasy.
Bethany had never been happier.
There was just one major bump in their road to love. Chet. They’d been able to keep their relationship under wraps for about a week before Chet caught her leaving Max’s place early one morning. It didn’t take a mathematician to figure out the score.
Chet had simply sat in his truck, staring at her progress across the front porch to her door. Her body was aflame with embarrassment, though she didn’t have any reason to be ashamed. But she and Max didn’t want to rile Chet any more than necessary, so they’d tried to keep it quiet.
It was anything but quiet the moment her door snapped shut. Chet was pounding on Max’s door, and then the yelling began. Every word reverberated through the thin walls of the duplex. Every horrible word.
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at, kid?! This isn’t a game!”
Max was too quiet to hear clearly, obviously trying to calm his irate uncle. But Chet turned it up a notch to compensate.
“Then you should know what happens when one of us mates with one of…them! Disaster! Heartbreak! Death!”
More quiet talk from Max.
“No! It’s exactly the same! Get it through your thick bear skull, kid, this needs to end! NOW!”
The last word was a deafening roar that shook the building. A door slammed, a car engine revved, and the fight was over. A moment later, Max was at her door.
He pulled her into a tight embrace — what they’d jokingly been calling a bear hug — and whispered into her ear. “I’m so sorry. Ignore him. He doesn’t understand.”
After that, Chet was colder than ever toward her, but he never confronted either of them again about their relationship. Bethany had tried to put his words out of her mind, but they pinged around in there, showing up unexpectedly, like in her dreams.
Packs of bears chasing her riddled her sleep state. Sometimes they’d catch her and she’d wake with a start; sometimes she would run into Max’s arms for protection, only to look up and see a bear’s gaping maw lunging at her. The dreams didn’t come every night, but often enough to take a toll on her health.
Dark circles appeared under her eyes and she began losing weight. I guess there’s an upside to insomnia, she thought, trying not to worry during daylight hours. Her brain made up for lost time at night, and she wanted to enjoy every moment she could with Max.
The dreams were puzzling, though, since Max had eased her concerns over his being a werebear. He explained that the mythology surrounding lycanthropes — werebears, werewolves and so on — was pretty off the mark, and that humans had little to fear from them.
“We aren’t cursed or mutated or anything like that; we just are what we are,” he told her one night after a particularly energetic lovemaking session during which he’d roared like an angry bear. Naturally, this had frightened — and thrilled — Bethany, and they’d spent the rest of the night in a Q & A session.
“We don’t shift only at the full moon,” he said, resting his chin on the top of her head as she leaned back against his chest. “We can do it whenever we need to. Kids sometimes have trouble controlling it, so most werebear cubs are homeschooled until they’ve mastered the change. But most of our lives are spent in human form.”
He explained that their numbers had dwindled to the point of extinction, but he worked for a coalition that helped werebears find suitable mates within their species. “Some of us think we shouldn’t discount the idea of breeding with humans, but there’s some strong resistance to this idea, usually from old-timers.”
A flush rose up Bethany’s chest. The thought of a group of Max’s kind disapproving of their relationship worried her. Would they try to talk Max into dumping her?
“Why? What’s their problem with it?” Her voice was small.
He sensed her anxiety and tightened his arms around her. “Mostly bad information and prejudice. Many want to keep our bloodlines pure.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
Max lowered his head to her ear and whispered, “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
The flush continued to spread through her body, but this time it was the flush of love.
~ * ~ * ~
“It’s only going to be for a few days,” Max was saying on the way to his truck. He’d been called out of town to arrange a meeting between a mucky-muck in the werebear world and a female that seemed like a promising match.
“I know,” Bethany said, trying to keep the wheedling tone out of her voice, “but I honestly don’t understand why they can’t just go out for a cup of coffee like the rest of us do on blind dates.”
He laughed as he threw a duffle bag on the passenger side floor. “We do things a little differently. There’s a hierarchy, a protocol that must be maintained.”
The confused look on Bethany’s face begged further explanation.
“Think of it like a religion. Some religions and cultures have very specific requirements for courtship and marriage. We’re just another foreign culture with customs that seem weird to you.”
That made sense, then something occurred to her. “What about us? How do we fit into those customs?”
The soft smile that lit up Max’s face melted her heart. He grabbed her hands and pulled her into a hug — not one of his patented ‘bear hugs’, but a sweet, gentle embrace. His soft lips descended on hers, wiping away any fears she had about their future.
“Darlin’, we’re making our own.” He gazed down at her for a long moment, Bethany becoming lost in his hypnotizing eyes, then gave her one more quick peck and hopped in the truck. “I’m heading up into the mountains so my phone probably won’t work. I’ll call you as soon as I have bars. Be good!”
“You, too,” she called jovially, though her stomach was churning at his departure. She didn’t want to turn into one of those clingy girlfriends that stifle
s her beau, but she still felt an ache deep down that she wouldn’t see him for so long.
“Snap out of it!” she muttered on her way back to her apartment. She’d been on her own for her entire adult life; a few days alone wouldn’t kill her. In fact, maybe she could get some stuff done that she’d been ignoring in favor of spending time with Max.
Like catching up with her friends. First she left a voicemail on Charlotte’s phone, then called Paul.
“Girl, I can’t believe you’ve finally come up for air! That boy must be the lay of a lifetime!”
Paul had a knack for making her laugh. “I know, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA, but I want to make up for it. Max had to go out of town and I thought it would be fun to get the gang together. How about dinner tonight? I know it’s short notice.…”
“Hellz to the yeah. We’ve all been absolutely dying for the dirt on this guy. We’ll all be there, don’t you worry about a thing. Thank God it’s Friday so we can get completely trashed while you titillate us with all the gory details. See you around six!”
Bethany was left staring at her phone. Did he just hang up? Sure enough, ‘call ended’. Shaking her head, she scrolled up to Kimmy’s contact and hit ‘call’.
“Ohmigod, it’s about fucking time you called me! I’m on the phone with Paul. What can I bring?”
“That was fast. I literally just hung up with him. I dunno, bottle of wine?”
“Done! Gotta go!”
Geez, had she really neglected them that much? Almost before the thought was finished, her phone chirped and the display flashed Charlotte’s grinning face.
“Hey, did you get my message?
“Yes, and I just hung up on a conference call with Dumb and Dumber,” Charlotte laughed. “They have a secret plan to get you drunk so you’ll tell us all about Max’s sexy-time skills.”
Laid Bear (A Werebear Shifter BBW Romance) Page 5